


An Instant Too Late

by possiblyfictional



Series: Angsty Rambles [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, I'm Sorry All Y'all, Other, The Author Regrets Nothing, this is just sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 16:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5672704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possiblyfictional/pseuds/possiblyfictional
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Everything kind of hurts when it's falling apart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Instant Too Late

Everything kind of hurts when it’s falling apart.

The hurt slips through the cracks in his facade and sneaks through the gap between Dean’s armor and his heart, poisoning him from the inside out. And god, does it hurt. It burns like the blazes in hell, it stings like a shot to the heart, it aches like the last words of a dying man.

Dean knows all these things well, yet he still isn’t sure he understands how this could hurt more than the very skin being peeled off his face in hell. He isn’t sure how this could feel like a more agonizing pain than feeling red soak into his shirts, stain his clothes, stain his skin.

The atmosphere had twisted into feeling like the eye of a hurricane; quiet and calm, the storm swirling around him. The storm was there, he just couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t recall exactly when it did that. Some time between seeing the blade plunge into Cas’ chest and watching blue-white light fall from his mouth and eyes. Some time between watching the pure light melting into the air and the angel’s body slumping onto the blade. Some time between when the world was whole and when, in a sudden rush of silver, it was not.

Dean had no idea what to do. He thinks he may have shouted something when he saw it happen.

He couldn’t even be with Cas in his last instants. He had enemies to kill. He had things to do in that moment that couldn’t be ignored for his best friend dying.

It only takes an instant, however, to realize you’d fallen in love.

Sometimes that instant is a little too late.

That was the case for Dean.

Dean was swearing, saying whatever came to mind, confessing things he wouldn’t have dared to say a month ago, a week ago, a minute ago. Words he would have uttered whisper-quiet on a late Sunday morning fell out of his mouth in tumultuous strength. The demons before him wouldn’t escape the anger of a man who’s just lost the one he realized he’s in love with a second too late.

He kills most of them. Sam hasn’t said a word or made a sound since he saw Cas’ blood pour out of him onto unforgiving concrete.

After there was nothing left to kill, Dean threw his gun at the barn wall. The demons that had captured the civilians were dead. So were the civilians. So was Cas.

He was too late. Always too late.

He ran to the angel, praying to whoever was caring to listen that Cas had even a second of life left. Dean knew better, but that didn’t stop him from begging.

He dropped to his knees beside the body, quiet suffering transforming into a wildfire in his bones. He felt for a pulse, although he knew there wouldn’t be one. He was whispering pleas. He didn’t care if Sam saw him. He didn’t care if God himself stepped out of the shadows. He didn’t care at all anymore, not in that moment.

It’s after Dean’s voice starts to go hoarse from screaming “look at me” at Cas’ body, after Sam’s hand was on his shoulder, that he quieted. There were tears on his face, on Cas’, mingling with the blood there. His head was cradled in Dean’s lap, his trench coat was splayed on the floor, his blood was drying. His body was cooling, slowly but steadily. Dean hadn’t even known Cas’ body was warm. Dean didn’t know how long it had been since he’d lost the angel. It could have been an eternity; it could have been no time at all.

All Dean could think about as he carried Cas’ body to the car, cradled against his chest, was all the things he didn’t say, all the things he didn’t do. It would have been as easy as letting the words slip over his tongue, letting his hands take Cas’ face and pull his lips to Dean’s. It could have been so easy.

Dean lets Sam drive. He sits in the back seat, because he doesn’t want to let go of Cas’ bloody hand. He doesn’t want to stop running a hand through Cas’ hair, because he never got the chance to when Cas was alive. He wanted to soak up all the warmth of Cas while he still could, before his body stiffened, before it cooled, before all the red on his lifeless form would be turned to ash in a proper hunter’s burial.

When they get back to the bunker, Sam and Dean head out to make the bonfire. Sam punches a tree and cuts his hand. He hasn’t said a word since the barn.

Dean watches the bonfire until none of it remains. Sam falls asleep some time late that night, but not without watery eyes and not without looking to Dean, silently asking what to do, asking for his brother, because he’s lost his best friend and he knows what Dean’s lost.

But Dean doesn’t know what to say, or what to do.

They’ve lost Cas.


End file.
